


i survived (but i paid for it)

by behradtarazi



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Wayne Angst, Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Bruce Wayne, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, It's Hard and Nobody Understands, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, a reflection on some of the shit b's been through, and his kids, and how shittily he handles it, god okay so this is just, i just wanted to get this off my chest, since he does mention losing his parents, this is dark as fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 02:56:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20418752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behradtarazi/pseuds/behradtarazi
Summary: Sometimes, the only way to survive is to go numb.





	i survived (but i paid for it)

Here we have a man at the brink of catastrophe, perpetually five seconds away from destruction.

Five seconds away from tearing himself apart.

Five seconds away from falling to the ground and shattering.

Like a mirror or his mother’s pearls, pulled apart by a stranger’s gun.

He has to stay in that moment forever, holding his breath and saying goodbye and screaming a prayer because if time moves forward anymore, if that goddamn clock keeps tick-tick-ticking he is too late.

He is too late.

And maybe he is crying over his father’s body or he is drowning in blood or he is carrying his what’s left of his son out of a warehouse, and maybe he is dying a thousand slow deaths because his stupid fucking heart insists on continuing to beat and maybe he would rather that it just all end, just all end quickly and stay that way.

Maybe he would rather that he rests, for once.

But it hurts.

It hurts and so he is here.

He is here, at the brink of catastrophe, five seconds away from destruction, and he stays here because he does not want to see what he is like when he has let the world fall from his shoulders and he does not want to see what he is like when he has given up and he does not want to see what he is like when he has fulfilled the prophecy, when he tumbles and breaks as all mortal things must in the end.

He learns to minimize damage, during the centuries he lives in those five seconds, to put the hurt in a box and lock it away or set it on fire and use it to fuel anger, so much fucking anger.

Sometimes, there is nothing you can do, there are parts that you have to shut down and close off and never look at again.

When you block out the bad, some of the good goes, too, and he is used to that by now.

He is becoming stone, becoming marble, because his little birds, _ his Robins _, keep dying and if there was any word in any language that could describe how badly it hurt he would scream it until his vocal chords burst and then he would scream it some more, but there is nothing that even comes close, nothing that has ever come close, and so he stays silent and with each bird that falls, wings broken and eyes blank, he goes blank, too.

He puts the hurt in a box and he locks it away and he locks away jokes and compliments with them too and that is fine. That is fine, because he cannot open those boxes ever again, no matter what happens, no matter what miraculous resurrection is written in, and maybe his Robins are angry at him for being so cold, so heartless, but at least he doesn’t hurt anymore.

He doesn’t hurt anymore.

Right?

The winter is creeping into his bones, and it aches and it burns, _ but at least he doesn’t hurt anymore. _

(Sometimes it hurts so badly that he thinks his chest is caving in and he cannot breathe and he tries to pull over to the side of the road and almost plunges headfirst into traffic and he thinks that maybe he should drive towards the bay and he should never take his foot off the gas and he should forget how to swim and he should sink like he does every time he looks at those fucking boxes, those fucking _ graves. _)

When he was little, he remembers his mother fondly telling him that he had a bleeding heart, and now he stands like a statue as his second son yells and rages, the word _ heartless _ringing in his ears, and it is better this way, he thinks.

He hears that word hundreds of times over the years, hears _ monster _ and _ cold-blooded _ and _ emotionless, _ and now he doesn’t just think it, he _ knows _that it is better this way, because it means that they cannot see the way that his heart still bleeds, the way that the blood is filling up his throat and choking every tender word, the way that his hands are stained red from every calculated strike he’s made against his feelings over the years, and it is so much better this way.

The only thing keeping him alive is the numbness.

He remembers a story about a man who died just to feel something, and he thinks that that man was a fool, because if he lets himself feel a thing he knows that it will be the end of him.

It’s all _ too much _now, every day piling up one after another, and one tear alone could break the dam and drown him in grief and that might be what he deserves.

Batman was created to punish the guilty, and God knows he’s the guiltiest one of all.

A blonde in a purple sweater asks him how long he thinks he can run, and he looks at her and tries to see a statistical sheet of weaknesses and strengths instead of a girl, slowly dying in a hospital bed while he is frozen by her side, helpless.

“I’m not running from anything,” he hears himself say, and the next time she blinks his heart wrenches because he does not know if her eyes will ever open again.

“Sure, B. sure.”

He’s a good liar, though some people are not convinced.

That’s fine.

The man that they’re worried about is just another mask, another part to play. He has so many of them that he almost gets them mixed up, switches from role to role effortlessly, lies like breathing because he doesn’t remember how to do anything else.

The last time he told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he was a child in an alleyway with two parents intact, and that boy, that innocent boy, died there that night.

The real Bruce Wayne has been gone for decades now.

Maybe he was the first Robin to go, the first wide eyed ball of energy and hope to crash and burn, the first funeral that he was too weak to attend.

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. He buried that box long ago, hammered the nails into place and walked away, told himself that things are better without it, without him. That they hurt less.

Everything hurts less when you can’t feel anything at all.

Someone asks him if he’s okay awhile after another Robin dies, one who held himself like a killer rather than a kid, one who had too many pets and too many knives and too few smiles. Maybe it is Catwoman, or the Commissioner, or Superman - it doesn’t matter, not in the end. His answer is always the same.

He doesn’t look at them, too busy finding another love-sized coffin and praying it does the trick.

“I’m fine. Let’s get back to work.”


End file.
